Maurice Kenny (Saranac Lake, NY) was born in 1929 of a Seneca mother and a Canadian Mohawk father. In the 1950s, he moved from his native North Country to Brooklyn, where he first taught at the Mary Taracai School of Drama, and later co-edited the poetry journal Contact II, and became publisher of Strawberry Press. Many of his volumes of poems originated in Brooklyn, among them "Blackrobe" (1982) and "Is Summer This Bear" (1985). Twice nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, Kenny is the winner of the prestigious American Book Award, the Boston Globe Award, and the William Carlos Williams Award. He is currently living in Saranac Lake, NY.